Chapter 10 Summary Word.doc

Intelligence
Intelligence:the ability to acquire knowledge, to think and reason effectively, and to deal
adaptively with the environment
Intelligence in Historical Perspective
Sir Francis Galton: Quantifying Mental Ability
- Charles Darwin’s cousin and influenced by his theory of evolution
- believed that genius seemed to occur within family trees
- ignored the fact that the more successful people he studied almost always came
from privileged environments
- tried to measure intellience by measuring reaction speed, hand strength and size of
people’s skulls
- his measures were unrelated to intelligence but generated interest in measuring
intelligence
Alfred Binet’s Mental Tests
- made the forerunner of all modern intelligence tests
- made two assumptions
- mental abilities develop with age
- rate at which people gain mental competence is a characteristic of the person
and is fairly constant over time
- got teachers to make problems that children ages 3, 4, 5, etc could solve and used it to
develop a standardized interview
- score of test known as mentalage
- if 8 year old could do 10 year old problem, his mental age was 10
- idea of mental age was expanded on by William Stern to make the IQ (intelligence
quotient): ratio of mental age to chronological age, multiplied by 100
- but because of schooling and the fact that people actually have their intelligence
skills decline as they age, today’s IQ tests provide a score based on a person’s
performance relative to the scores of other people the same age
Binet’s Legacy: An Intelligence Testing Industry Emerges
- Stanford Professor found Binet’s work and made a few changes and called it Stanford-
Binet
- it was used to test US Army recruits for WWI
- after that success, educators used similar instruments to test groups of children
- Wechsler developed a competitor when he believed that the Stanford-Binet relied too
much on verbal testing
The Nature of Intelligence Psychometric Approach: The Structure of Intellect
- Psychometrics: the statistical study of psychological tests
- tries to identify and measure the abilities that underlie individual differences in
performance
FactorAnalysis
- researchers want to identify the mental abilities of the human mind
- they do this by testing different mental abilities and then clustering them
together, by looking at correlation, to reflect the same underlying mental skill
- it is hard to tell correlations when there are a large number of tests
- factoranalysisreduces a large number of measures to a smaller number of
clusters with each containing variables that correlate highly with one another but
less highly with variables in other clusters------ basically identifies clusters
- if results correlate highly with each other they are assumed to be testing the same
mental abilities
- but even separate clusters show correlation, just less
- controversy if intelligence is general mental capacity or does it consist of
separate and specific mental abilities
ThegFactor:IntelligenceasGeneralMentalCapacity
- Charles Spearman found that grades in different subjects were always positively
correlated
- eg. people who did well in math also did well in language
- argued that intelligence was a general ability
- concluded that intellectual performance is determined partly by a g factor: general
intelligence and partly by whatever special abilities might be required to perform that
particular task
- g factor cuts across all tasks, it is the core of intelligence
- still believed today, believed that g factor will predict job success
IntelligenceasSpecificMentalAbilities
- correlation is not perfect so Thurstone believed that human mental performance
depends on seven distinct abilities called primarymentalabilities
- educators find this more useful than the g factor model
- easier to work on one area and improve on that than to improve general
intelligence
CrystallizedandFluidIntelligence
- broke down the g factor model into two subtypes of g
- crystallizedintelligence: ability to apply previously acquired knowledge to current
problems - requires long term memory
- fluidintelligence: ability to handle new situations where personal experiences does not
provide a solution ( solving new problems)
- requires to think logically and manage information in working memory
- as we get older we progress from using fluid intelligence to crystallized intelligence
more
- performance for crystalized intelligence improves then remains stable, but fluid
intelligence decline as we enter late adulthood
Carroll’sThree-StratumModel:AModernSynthesis
- three-stratumtheoryofcognitiveabilitiesestablishes three levels of mental skills (general,
broad, and narrow) arranged in a hierarchical model
- the general is the g factor
- provides the most complete and detailed map of the human intellect
Cognitive Process Approaches: The Nature of Intelligent Thinking
- Psychometric theories of intelligence describe how people are different from each
other but do not explain why they vary in these mental skills
- cognitiveprocesstheoriesexplore the specific information-processing and cognitive
processes that underlie intellectual ability
- this was the logic behind Galton’s early attempts to relate intelligence to speed
of reaction
- Sternberg came up with the triarchictheoryofintelligencethat addresses psychological
processes involved in intelligent behaviour and the diverse forms that intelligence can
take
- divides the cognitive processes that underlie intelligent behaviour into three
specific components
- metacomponents: higher order processes used to plan and regulate task
performance
- underlie individual differences in fluid intelligences
- performancecomponents: actual mental processes used to perform the
task eg. perceptual processing, retrieving appropriate memories and
schemas from longterm memory, generating responses
- knowledgeacquisitioncomponents: allow us to learn from our experiences,
store information in memory and combine new insights with previously
acquired information
- underlie individual differences in crystallized intelligences
- says there are three intelligences
- Analytical intelligence: involves the things that helps with problem-
solving, good for academic success, tested by traditional tests
- Practical intelligence: skills needed to cope with the demands everyday
and take care of yourself and others - Creative intelligence: mental skills needed to deal adaptively with novel
problems
- says that they have the common g factor but are also distinct from one another
- some kids are good at one but bad at another
Broader Conceptions of Intelligence: Beyond Mental
Competencies
Gardner’sMultipleIntelligences
- says there are distinct varieties of adaptive abilities
- suggests that these different classes of abilities require the functioning of separate but
interacting modules in the brain
EmotionalIntelligence
- some theorists believe that emotional competence is a form of intelligence
- emotionalintelligence: abilities to read others’ emotions accurately, to respond to them
appropriately, to motivate oneself, to be aware of one’s own emotions and to regulate
and control one’s own emotional responses
- four branches - measured using MSCEIT
- perceiving emotions
- using emotions to facilitate thought
- understanding emotions
- managing emotions
- believed that emotional intelligence has evolutionary roots
- emotionally intelligent people form stronger emotional bonds, enjoy greater
success in careers, marriage and childrearing
- basically may enjoy more success than people who are mentally intelligent
- some believe emotional intelligence theory is too much a stretch from the original idea
of intelligence as being mental ability
The Measurement of Intelligence
Increasing the Informational Yield from Intelligence Tests
- today’s tests samples a wider range of abilities and provides a composite IQ score
separate to the individual ones for each section
- test of other specific cognitive skills provide many tools for assessing both children and
adults
Theory-Based Intelligence Tests
- advances in the theory of intelligence has caused the development of new instruments
to test the specific abilities dictated by the theories
- eg. the distinction between crystallized and fluid intelligence Should we Test for Aptitude or Achievement
- achievementtest: tests how much they have learned
- this will be a good indicator of future performance eg. if a person has learned a
lot in high school, it is likely they will do the same in university
- but this assumes everyone has the same opportunity to learn
- aptitudetest: tests the applicant’s potential for future learning and performance
- this is more fair because it does not depend on prior knowledge as much as it
does on the person’s ability
- but it is more difficult to construct a test without testing prior learning
- also what it tests (solving puzzles) may not be a relevant skill for anything other
than the test
- most tests measure both
Psychometric Standards for Intelligence Tests
- psychologicaltest: method for measuring individual differences related to some
psychological concept based on a sample of relevant behaviour in a scientifically
designed and controlled situation
- for a test that would meet all requirements, it is measured by three concepts:
1. Reliability
- reliability: consistency of measurement
- one form is consistency over time
- every time you take the test, you want to have the same result. eg. stepping on
a scale three times in a row, you should get the same weight
- known as test-retestreliability
- measured by giving the same test to a group of participants two or more times
- after age 7 scores on intelligence tests remain relatively stable
- also if a child scores high, it is likely they will score high as an 80 year old
too
- another form is internalconsistency
- there is a consistency of measurement within the test eg. the subtest within a
test are measuring the same skill
- interjudgereliability
- consistency of measurement when different people observe the same event or
score the same test eg. doesn’t matter who marks the test, you will get the
same score
2. Validity
- how well a test actually measure what it is designed to measure
- constructvalidity: a test successfully measures the psychological construct it is
designed to measure eg. if an intelligence test had perfect construct validity,
differences in IQs would be due to differences in intelligence and nothing else
- contextvalidity: if items on a test measure all the knowledge or skills that are
assumed to underlie the construct of interest eg. if you are testing math ability, you have to test not only addition, but also subtraction, multiplication and
division
- criterion-relatedvalidity: ability of test scores to co